Babylon, and appealed at the same time to the order in every country of Europe to pay up the arrears owing from the different commanderies and priories, and unite together to avert so imminent a danger. Not only were the letters disregarded, but the jealousies between the languages of Provence and Italy reached such a height that Beranger, worn out with sorrow and disappointment, was only prevented from resigning in disgust by the authority of Gregory XI., who finally took the adjustment of the whole question into his own hands. On the death of Beranger, in 1374, Robert de Juillac, grand prior of France, was chosen as his successor. He was at his priory at the time of his election, and setting out for Rhodes, he presented himself at Avignon on his road, to offer homage to the Pope. The devotion of the grand masters to the Holy See through all their difficulties is very striking; and on no occasion did they offer a more noble example of religious obedience than on the present. Smyrna was still in the hands of the Christians; its Venetian governor was half-merchant, half-soldier; and complaints were addressed to the papal court on the part of the archbishop and inhabitants, that, in consequence of his devotion to his commercial engagements and frequent voyages to Italy, the place was left without defence, and almost without a garrison. Gregory decided on committing the care of the city to the Hospitallers; and when Juillac appeared at Avignon, the first intelligence that reached his ears was that, in addition to every other difficulty and embarrassment, the defence of Smyrna was to be given into his hands. In vain he represented that Smyrna was a forlorn hope, isolated in the midst of the Turkish dominions, and too far from Italy to receive any succours from thence in case of siege. “The situation of the city,” replied the Pontiff, “in the heart of the infidel’s own country, is the very cause of my intrusting it to your order; for the Turks will not advance farther so long as they have so considerable an enemy at home; and I therefore charge you under pain of excommunication, to despatch the necessary garrison immediately on your return to Rhodes.” When this injunction was communicated to the council of the order assembled in the island on the arrival of the grand master, there was but one feeling as to the nature of the commission intrusted to them. “All were very well aware,” says Vertot, “that it was to send the knights to certain death; nevertheless they took the part of obedience, and many of them even generously offered themselves for a service whose dangers and glory were equally certain. For it was not to be supposed that the Turks, whose power daily increased, would long leave the knights in peaceable possession of a place which was in the very centre of their dominions.” For twenty-seven years, therefore, did the Hospitallers succeed in holding Smyrna triumphantly against the Turks; and its